Every time I remember Mass Effect it's painful to think about. A video game that really changed my gaming life and sucked me in so hard right off the bat... and that had potential to end in GOAT fashion choking it all away.

First time I played the ending I was like "eh it's not that bad" but after months of letting it sit it's really bad. As a diehard who played through the first two games more than a dozen times each it's really sad how such an epic franchise can be destroyed by the finale. The third game itself had the best fighting but really went shallow on the RPG front and the ending was devastating to fans of the series. So much so that gaming history was made when the developers actually added to the ending because of so much fan hate.

The only part of 3 that was remotely deep was the ending talk with each squad member and the reuniting missions with Wrex and Mordin my two favorite squad members from the series. Is Bioware to blame for selling out to EA? Is EA to blame for handling the project so carelessly and mainstreaming it for shooter fans? I can't even bring myself to play the 3rd game for a second try.

One of the most epic trailers of all time for any game. I watched this 500 times in the week leading up to the launch of ME2 and I was there at 10 pm for the midnight launch. I stayed up until 4 am that night playing.

Mass Effect 3 didn't have nearly the amount of replayablity that 1 and 2 had. Shit, I must have played through ME2 6 or 7 times. Same with the first one. I finished ME3 once and I haven't really touched it since.

The Rannoch and Tuchanka missions were awesome though. Definitely the highlights of the game for me.

Mass Effect 3 didn't have nearly the amount of replayablity that 1 and 2 had. Shit, I must have played through ME2 6 or 7 times. Same with the first one. I finished ME3 once and I haven't really touched it since.

The Rannoch and Tuchanka missions were awesome though. Definitely the highlights of the game for me.

Would you agree though that the game had a chance to really be in GOAT discussions with all the build up and dropped the ball? What do you cite as the reason for the demise of ME? I'm pretty sure no matter who you blame it's due to the EA purchase. Fiasco talked about this before and I didn't really believe it until months later.

Would you agree though that the game had a chance to really be in GOAT discussions with all the build up and dropped the ball? What do you cite as the reason for the demise of ME? I'm pretty sure no matter who you blame it's due to the EA purchase. Fiasco talked about this before and I didn't really believe it until months later.

Bioware being rushed by EA was probably the reason it didn't live up to the hype and expectations. If they had more time maybe they could have seen some of the writing flaws and made the game more polished.

I don't know about it being in the GOAT discussions. I kind of knew ME1 would be the high point of the series, at least for me. But that didn't stop ME2 from being amazing. And I don't think Red Dead Redemption will ever be topped. That game will always be the GOAT imo, although Gears 3 and the PS1 Spyro games are right up there as well.

But still, ME3 wasn't really a bad game. I'd probably give it like a 8/10 or so.

Yea... I'd give ME1 a good 9.7.... ME2 a 9.4 let's say... and ME3 an 8.5. If all the epic stories had tied together combined with an ending as epic as the build up I truly think ME3 could have been one of the GOAT games.

Outside of the whole ending fiasco, ME3 is a great game. Gameplay is much more fluid than the previous titles, and the atmosphere of the game is very accurate. Character interaction is great as well (since ME has always had great characters). I almost shed a tear when Thane died.

Outside of the whole ending fiasco, ME3 is a great game. Gameplay is much more fluid than the previous titles, and the atmosphere of the game is very accurate. Character interaction is great as well (since ME has always had great characters). I almost shed a tear when Thane died.

Yup. Thane, Wrex and Mordin's deaths . I agree in terms of the actual fluidity of gameplay it was superior to the other games. That's even more reason why it's so disappointing that story+ending fell so short. It's not that ME3 as a whole wasn't a great game (I gave it an 8.5!) but it was nowhere near as good as it could or should have been.

I am a gamer, but never played first and second ME while I tried ME3 but it didnt impressed me. Im not big on RPG's but I liked a few. Would you recommend to play it?

Uh.... of course. Mass Effect 1 is one of the greatest video games of all time. Mass Effect 2 had improved combat but worse RPG story line. Play the first two and you'll understand why I thought Mass Effect 3 had a shot to become the greatest game of all time.

I liked Mass Effect 2 the most. Which actually surprises me because I didn't really care for any of the new characters it introduced. Thane was cool I guess. But I mostly stuck to bringing Tali and Garrus along on missions because they were the most interesting companions. I'm also an RPG fan and was a little disappointed at first how that was trimmed down. It was a trade-off for the action/combat aspects of the gameplay being greatly improved.

Given that, I still think it was the best in the series and that's a testament to the strength of the storytelling in the game. It was incredible. The opening scenes with your "death", the reveal of the new Normandy (the direction of this moment would have been amazing in any high-budge sci-fi movie), the companion-specific missions, meeting up with Ashley again, playing as Joker!!!!, and the tense final mission. It was all crafted and paced so damn well.

While I didn't really like most of the new characters, the game served as good introduction to them. This was ME3's strength. The way they handled Mordin, Jack, and Thane was fantastic. It's a shame that the entire last sequence was reduced to something so emotionally empty. It seemed like this was a series that was well planned out and to only have a, seemingly, tacked on "press button 1, 2 or 3" choice to end it was a gigantic disappointment. It totally cheapend the Reaper threat and your journey to get to that point.